


the soulmate colour AU, the one where distance matters

by theadmiralscoffee



Category: Holby City
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Soulmate Colour AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-22
Updated: 2016-11-22
Packaged: 2018-09-01 12:52:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8625115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theadmiralscoffee/pseuds/theadmiralscoffee
Summary: the world is in greyscale, but when you meet your soulmate, you see colour.Everything starts getting brighter, colours seeping in like ink in water. Last time this happened, she thinks, she was here.





	

**Author's Note:**

> the inspiration for this is 100% from Crystal, and a million thanks to Dax for editing the living hell out of this. this started as a headcanon and has exploded into this monstrosity.

When Bernie was seven, her family went on holiday to the beach, a rare occasion for everyone to be all together in one place for one holiday. She was holding her mother’s hand, enjoying how the sand felt between her toes and carefully not getting too close to the chilly waters. A sharp cry made her turn her head. Searching for the cause, little Bernie saw a flash of brown hair, and a red balloon float into the sky. She never saw much of the little girl or her face, but the sun shining on those brown curls brought forth a million different colours. Bernie didn’t have names for any of them, but she wanted to know everything she could about all of them.

 

Her mum gently tugged her hand, and as Bernie turned to her, the world was doused in black and white again. Over ice cream that afternoon, Bernie told her mom that she heard a little girl today and that she got to see colour, and her mom gently chuckles. She shakes her head and goes on about little girls and their imaginations. “ _ Someday _ ,” she tells Bernie,  _ “someday you’ll meet a man and you’ll see colour and it will be everything you’ve ever wanted.”  _

 

Bernie never forgets that glance of the little girl on the beach, and her runaway brown curls. She never tries to talk about it again.

 

\--

 

Serena remembers a day on the beach, when she was six years old. Water crashed over her toes as she played where the tide washed onto the beach, and she dragged along her balloon from the street markets. As ocean winds pulled her curls around her face, she blinked against the bright sun, and suddenly the hair whipping across her face was brown. She yelped, and her balloon flew from her hand. Serena forgets, later, what colour the balloon was, but will always remember the deep blue of the ocean, and the brilliant browns that lit up in her hair. Her mom chided her for thinking she could see colour already, considering she was so young. 

 

“ _ You have to be an adult and meet someone first. Once you’re married, you might get to see colour if you’re lucky enough, but really Serena, don’t count on it.” _

 

\--

 

When Serena gets into medical school, she doesn’t want to admit that she’s never seen colour, but the information is vital for patient safety. Once hired, only she and her immediate supervisor are aware, but it turns out she is far better than her limitations. Serena soars through her studies, and quickly rises to be one of the best in her class.

 

When she goes out, she deflects comments that could unearth her inability to see colour. Most of her classmates have significant others, or spouses, soulmates, as it were, whereas she has Edward, but no colour. She loves him, and is content, but something in the back of her mind always nags at her. Maybe she’ll learn to see colour, but in the meantime she’s just going to be really damned good at her job to make up for it. Eventually, she gets to hang her Harvard degree on her wall, further cementing her efforts to fly above everyone. She tells herself that it doesn’t matter that it’s in grayscale.

 

Holby City hires Serena without a second glance at her inability to see colour. Her record states everything anyone could ever want to know. If she ever gets verbally backed into a corner, she’s able to pass through with a minor comment regarding one of the few colours she remembers from that moment on the beach. Rich browns, she guesses, go with coffees, or so she’s gleaned. Despite getting older, she always hopes she can see what colour coffee is when she drinks it over a frosty morning. Maybe someone will be there with her, wrapped around her, warming her body from outside while the coffee warms her, inside out.

 

\--

 

Bernie gets through medical college without a second glance. After a brief stint in cardiothoracic speciality, she takes strides in trauma surgery. She further develops an excellent if not extraordinary ability to focus without wavering, and make snap decisions with an exceptionally high success rate. The losses hit her hard, however, and she keeps a mental running tally. She tries to forget their names. It never works.

 

Being in the armed forces means her file contains every bit of her health information, including the note about her vision. No one mentions it, if they know, because Bernie Wolfe is nearly unparalleled when she’s in action. She’s exactly what they need.

 

When she holds her children, she sometimes wonders if they have brown eyes, and later when their medical files confirm, her heart tugs. She’s supposed to be able to see her children’s eyes. It’s not really a shock that she’s unable to do even that simple thing.

 

She really is an excellent surgeon, though.

 

\--

 

Some of Bernie’s friends said they saw colour instantly, and others said it took a while, but one day when they turned around everything was technicolour, with their loved one in the middle. She works every day on her marriage with Marcus, resolutely believing that maybe if she tries harder at being a better wife, she could earn the right to see every colour of the rainbow. Years pass and nothing changes but after a while she suspects that Marcus has given up, too. They stay together mainly for the kids, and more practically because divorce is messy and expensive, and what would their friends think? They are comfortable this way, not great, not too bad, but comfortable. 

 

When she’s on tour, she gets blown up. She thinks it might be the universe, punishing her for having an affair with someone who didn’t even bring colour into her life. A black and white affair on top of a black and white marriage. Bernie doesn’t know what she did wrong, but is sure that somewhere, somehow she did.

 

She begins working at Holby City in hopes of saving a marriage that is quickly sinking at a rate she didn’t know possible. Alex shows up in the hospital, not long after Bernie begins work to try to rekindle what they had in the field.  _ Before, that is, _ Bernie thinks,  _ the universe stepped in with more than a few words against the subject. _ When Alex finally concedes and says she’s leaving, Bernie’s heart aches but the pain pales in comparison to the way it shatters when Alex admits that Bernie brought colour into her life. She doesn’t follow Alex out the door.

 

Maybe Bernie is broken after all and can’t see what she’s supposed to. Maybe she isn’t meant to see colour and she has been deluding herself all these years. 

 

She doesn’t dream of the beach that night.

 

\--

 

Serena accepted that Edward wasn’t going to bring colour into her life, from the get-go. After their divorce she accepted that she was free to be with whomever she wanted even moreso. Robbie brings a level of comfort and excitement, but he loses his chance when he doesn’t want to accept Jason as part of their life together. She asks Ric if any of his wives brought him any colour, but backs off when his eyes get cloudy, and she doesn’t ask again.

 

She’s probably beyond the age for dreaming of things like this, anyway. She throws herself wholly into making her AAU run smoothly, and integrating her nephew into her life.

 

The morning she’s due to leave town for her daughter’s performance, she’s exasperated and frustrated, while somehow still maybe grateful for the excuse to not go. She’s been trying to support her daughter from farther away, while missing her greatly, a tricky navigation she has yet to master. As Serena argues with her car (again), something around the edges of her vision flickers, and she notes almost matter-of-factly that her car is green before everything stills again. She writes it off as just a silly moment, a fleeting fantasy brought on by stress and too much coffee. Being on the wrong side of fifty is giving her silly notions, and she’s much too old to fall in love and see colour. She’s made it this far without,  _ thank you very much _ , so who’s to say she needs it now?

 

\--

 

As she reassures her husband, Bernie clambers from her car, unfolding into the sunlight. Glancing across the car park, she has to hold in a chuckle at the woman making ridiculous gestures at her car. Brown hair, she notes, captures the sun in a most brilliant array of colours. She blinks, and the colour is gone again, but not before her breath catches in her throat. That day on the beach with the little girl -it’s the same brown that she dreamed of, never dared hope she would see again. By the time she greets Hanssen the world has settled back into black and white, but her stomach remains in turmoil.

 

Through the hectic nature of surgery and the personnel issues, Bernie’s pushed aside the flicker of brown in her day. Bernie pauses while typing, glancing up at the irate woman on the phone, pacing in front of the broken car, still untouched by the looks of things. Speaking around the fag, she growls some fairly meaningless car questions, knowing the woman won’t know the answer but it seems like a good way to start. When the woman turns, a smile in her eyes, Bernie instantly stops in her tracks. Those brown eyes and that brown hair render her completely speechless. A hand is extended toward her, she vaguely notices, and she registers the name— _ Serena Campbell _ —commits it to memory.

 

\--

 

When they start to work together, their days fill with muted colours, like their vision is coming through a haze. Slowly, scrubs become different colours, and Serena’s blouses become a rainbow of fabrics, each a new pastel tint that reflects into mischievous eyes. Bernie loses focus when Serena walks by and her blouse flies behind her, still new colours pulling her gaze away from papers or patients. When Serena wears a leopard print one, Bernie isn’t able to look at her head-on all day, because she gets so distracted by the yellows and browns playing against those smiling chestnut eyes. It isn’t the dramatic change she heard about as a kid, but she thinks this might be better. The closer they get the richer the colours appear and it makes her feel like maybe she isn’t so broken after all.

 

Late at night, alone in her bed, the cold realisation comes across that maybe Serena is the one who brought colour into Bernie’s life, but the other surgeon hasn’t said a thing.  _ You daft idiot _ , she criticises,  _ you finally get to see colour and she doesn’t feel the same way _ . She couldn’t see how seeing colour now made sense, when she had worked so hard to be with Marcus, had felt so strongly about Alex. During every stolen moment with Alex she could remember hoping that maybe this time a bright spark of colour would finally happen. Her dreams had taunted her with the spark from so long ago, brown hair and a red balloon dancing around the edges of her vision. She had suspected that Alex’s hair was brown and couldn’t help hoping to get to see it one day. 

 

She never did.

 

\--

 

Serena loves when Bernie’s scrubs become different bright shades of blues, and those maroon ones make her heart skip a beat. Those ones match the blush that burns across the major’s cheeks when Serena notices that she’s staring at the leopard print shirt.  _ Good job, old girl _ , she thinks, congratulating herself when she once again makes Bernie stutter. Her favourite colours change depending on the day, but brown always tops the list. She sees it in the coffee that appears on her desks after hectic mornings, in the wood counters in Albie’s where she spends long evenings laughing with Bernie after even longer shifts, and in those deep brown eyes that sparkle with mirth and something more. She loves that each day, the colours appear a little richer, a little deeper, a little brighter, just when she thought everything couldn’t be more vibrant. After all this time, she finally understands what the stories meant. She never thought she would get to see colour, and here it is, brought in by this competent, clever, clueless woman, her big macho army medic. Sometimes, she almost tells Bernie.

 

Nights out with Bernie end with wine and laughter; but most notably of all Serena notices that Shiraz becomes the most beautiful deep red in her presence. Always appreciative of the taste, she finds a newfound love for the rich colour, ever-heightened of course by the company. One Tuesday Serena manages AAU alone while Bernie is called away to Keller for the afternoon. Serena pushes her paperwork away, finally finished with the stack, and she reaches to file Bernie’s so the other surgeon isn’t stuck at the office any longer than necessary. It’s a small favour she’s taken to enjoying, partially because she likes organisation, partially (mainly, although she might not admit it aloud) because this way she has more time with Bernie.

 

A small chuckle sounds from the doorway, and Serena startles, looking up with wide eyes. Clad in the maroon scrubs of Keller, Bernie leans against the doorway. Unable to properly manage a sentence, Serena gives a fairly shaky smile that ends with her mouth hanging slightly open.  _ She looks like she’s wearing bloody Shiraz my god old girl do close your mouth _ . Bernie chuckles and comments on Serena getting caught doing Bernie’s paperwork for her, and how she’ll never be able to properly repay her. Serena shoots back that maybe she could start with buying the first round of Shiraz that night and she’s met with a shy smile and a proposition for a date in an hour’s time.

 

It’s a yes.

 

\--

 

When Bernie runs into Jason in the hallways of the hospital, she holds in a laugh when Jason says her hair is so much better in person. She assumes Serena had commented about how she has been known to forget to tame her hair after a shift, but honestly she’s so busy shoving it into a scrub cap, or taking it down, that she doesn’t care.

 

What she doesn’t know is that Serena had been trying to explain the colour of Bernie’s hair. Jason didn’t see colour, so Serena waffled on and tried to come up with names and descriptions for what she was seeing, and Jason told her that she was too inefficient with her words, and a simple ‘light and curly’ would have worked sufficiently. She laughed at his reaction, but dreamt about that hair: how it danced when Bernie turned her head, how it curled when she kept tucking it behind her ears, and how the sun could catch in the strands and shine with a million tones. She dreamt of telling Bernie that she could see colour for the first time in her life, and she was beginning to think maybe the Major was the spark.

 

\--

 

The more colour that leeches into Serena’s life, the more she ponders that Bernie probably has already seen colour, and it’s a novelty to only her. She’s not heard of many people seeing colour for the first time so late in their life, and the fact that Bernie’s never said anything one way or the other isn’t exactly promising. That woman, that Alex, seemed to leave shadows in Bernie’s deep eyes, and she suspects Alex took colour away with her. Not one to view cheating lightly after what she’s been through, Serena can forgive Bernie’s indiscretions. Cheating on a husband to be with one’s soulmate makes sense, sort of, and why wouldn’t Bernie go for colour while she had the chance?

 

Sometimes Serena wishes she could put the light back into Bernie’s world, lighting things with colours only they could know, but she’s being foolish. Besides, Serena isn’t so sure she has  _ those _ kinds of feelings for Bernie anyway. She just wants her to be happy, wants it more than she can comprehend, wants it with every shade and colour she can imagine.

 

\--

 

Bernie’s world wavers in colour as she despairs that she caused Fletch to be on their operating table, but sharply comes into focus as Serena reassures her that she’s not at fault. As Serena continues to tell her that she’s fantastic, the world gets brighter than she’s ever seen before.

 

Overwhelmed by both word and colour, Bernie looks at Serena, drawn in by eyes, darker brown than she’s ever seen before. When Serena gives Bernie a small smile, the world grows brighter still, and Bernie drops her gaze to pink lips. She lunges forward, pressing her mouth to Serena’s, and the world explodes into bright and full colour, and she pulls back, opening her eyes just to see how extraordinary Serena looks in vivid hue, and her eyes stay open long enough only to register Serena following her retreat, and lunging back into another breathless kiss.

 

\--

 

Serena has never seen so much colour in her life as she has after she kisses Bernie back. They had frantically separated after the cleaning crew came into theatre, and Serena practically fell off of Bernie’s lap in her efforts to seem casual. Her world was so incredibly vibrant and she finally understands every story she’s ever heard.

 

Bernie bolts, leaving Serena to gather her papers and leave, alone. She lays awake, staring for hours at her ceiling. In the wee hours of the morning, she concludes that maybe this isn’t as unexpected as she thinks. Maybe everything leading up to this shouldn’t be as surprising as she thinks. Maybe this is how it’s supposed to be.

 

When she’s alone with Bernie in the elevator the next Monday morning, she wants to say that everything is in colour and it’s because of Bernie, but she doesn’t. Unsure of how to even begin, she shuts everything away and tries to work like everything is normal. When Bernie shuts it all down over wine at the end of the day, Serena resigns herself to understanding that although this has changed her life into one of technicolour, Bernie clearly isn’t so deeply affected. That being said, she’s not to going to leave it all aside. _ I’m not called a consummate flirt for naught _ , she thinks with a sly grin, catching Bernie’s eyes from across the ward, and enjoying the blush that creeps across the other surgeon’s cheeks and blooms down her neck. She tries to ignore the tinge of sadness at the knowledge that the gorgeous shade is not to be shared.

 

\--

 

When Bernie suggests dinner at a new Italian restaurant Serena looks like she’s nearly going to turn down the invitation. When Bernie mentions the extensive wine list, however, Serena lights up. Bernie makes an internal vow to make that smile happen as much as she possibly can, especially since she screwed this up, this new  _ us _ . Serena ducks out of the office to change her blouse, and Bernie leans back, arms behind her head. Trying not to notice the lingering perfume or worry about how she definitely scanned Serena up and down as the other surgeon left, she runs through the day’s surgeries again in her head, wondering if she could research a new technique for one, thinking of possible improvements to her technique, actions that could be more precise, sharper, better.

 

All thoughts are immediately wiped from her mind when Serena announces her presence with a chuckle as she leans against the doorframe, smirking. Bernie stares at Serena’s mouth, drowning in her lipstick, a colour that she’s never seen before, except for maybe in the sunset she watched with Serena on the hospital roof last week. She’s unsure how to compliment her, wary to mention anything that could out how Bernie can see colour because of Serena. One kiss didn’t really warrant that discussion, or mean that Serena was actually interested in her, however much Bernie wanted it to. All she can think about, as she stares at that smirk, is how much she wants to kiss that lipstick away, leave stains of that colour all over Serena’s delectable body.

  
  


\--

 

Bernie tries not to think too much about how Serena loops her arm through Bernie’s as they walk to dinner. Looking everywhere but at the beautiful woman next to her, Bernie spots a rainbow flag  hanging from a store front. She stumbles, and Serena stops to check that she’s okay. Bernie manages to stop actual tears from falling, but she isn’t able to properly articulate how she feels. She’s simply humbled by the sight of a pride flag, overwhelmed by bright colourful stripes. Of course, she’s known that pride flags were rainbows, known that they represented so much for so many people, but she never knew what one truly looked like.  _ How appropriate _ , she thinks,  _ that Serena is here with me, now _ . She realises Serena is talking to her. Trying to brush off why she has stopped in her tracks, Bernie tries to claim that some street dust must have gotten in her eye, tries to act nonchalant as she wipes away a tear. One look at Serena, and Bernie knows she’s didn’t believe a word of it, but Bernie maybe falls just a little more for her when Serena merely grimaces and doesn’t push Bernie to explain.

 

How appropriate that a flag that means so much should be so so vibrant.

 

\--

 

Serena finds every excuse, once they’re on even ground again, to touch Bernie. She can see in what she suspects is full colour now, but every touch makes her nerves tingle, makes everything seem brighter. Dinners out may not end in kisses, but she’ll find a reason to hug close to Bernie’s side, snuggling into her while under the guise of looping her arm through hers. They end up entwined on the couch when watching movies with Jason, who somewhat smugly never says a word.

 

It’s not that she doesn’t want more kisses, but she’s unsure how to initiate them yet when Bernie is so easy to startle away. When Bernie tells Serena about the secondment, Serena’s thinking brain shuts down. She can’t figure out how to say what needs to be said, so she pushes forward. As she wraps herself around Bernie, kissing her, her heart nearly leaps from her chest. Raf, _ the poor boy _ , interrupts them when Serena was sure there was going to be more kissing,  _ kissing she’d like a lot more of, thank you very much. _ .

 

After they shyly agree to dinner at Bernie’s place, Serena knows. She’s going to tell Bernie that she brought colour into her life.

 

Except, she doesn’t get that chance.

 

Bernie bolts.

 

\--

 

She’s not sure what colour this new apartment is, but Bernie can tell, even through the black and white, that it is stark and dull.  _ Just like life since you left, you stupid idiot. _ Staring at the ceiling, she lays sideways across her bed. She never saw colour with Marcus, so she just worked harder at being a better wife, and when that never seemed to work, she dedicated herself to being the best surgeon possible. If she wasn’t right and couldn’t see colour, she’d make damn sure the soldiers on her table could have another chance. Alex blew through her life in a haze of grey, but now. Now she had months of slowly permeating colour, and now, now she was alone and everything was dim again.  _ Figures _ , she thinks,  _ that you might have had a touch of good, and you fog it all off instead. _

 

She regrets not telling Serena about her vision changing, but then again, it wouldn’t have made leaving easier. What ifs are utterly exhausting, but eventually Bernie comes to the conclusion she needs to go back. She hopes she isn’t stuck in black and white forever. Now that she knows otherwise, she can’t stand this anymore.

 

The hospital _Serena_ needs her, after all. 

 

\--

  
  


Six weeks. It’s been six weeks since she left and took all the colour with her. Gathering her strength, Serena wipes her tears away, gathers her bags and briefcases, and heads to AAU for yet another unremarkably dull day. Halfway through her morning, she ducks into her office for a quiet moment. This morning she had growled at everyone when she found that another desk was in her office again.  _ How dare they _ , she nearly shouted at Raf,  _ hire another locum without discussing it with me first. It’s my ward, after all, since someone else dropped all responsibilities.  _ As she rubs the tiredness from her eyes, she tries not to think about her again. Serena leans back in her chair to stare across the office; there are blue scrubs folded neatly on the opposite desk. She blinks again and they are dark grey. Blinks again, blue.

 

Blinks. Grey.

Her breath catches in her throat, and her hand comes up to fuss with her necklace.

Blinks. Blue.

Blinks. Grey.

 

She waits for the trauma phone to ring. Maybe someone will come bursting through the doors and it will be the person that was truly meant to bring colour to her life, and Bernie was a mistake, a fluke of the system. Maybe it will be a doctor, maybe the patient.

Blinks.

Everything starts getting brighter, colours seeping in like ink in water.  _ Last time this happened _ , she thinks,  _ she was here _ . Serena scoffs and sits up, setting about working through the mountain of patient files. She assumes the whole incident must have been a mistake, or even better she had made it all up.  _ Delusional old bat _ .

Blinks.

A gentle knock on the office door sounds through the small room, and she looks up.

Blinks.

Bernie’s standing there, looking more at ground than anything else. Before she’s properly processed her motions, Serena finds herself standing toe to toe with Bernie. She tries to catch the other surgeon’s eyes, but fails. She gently reaches for Bernie’s hand, and when their fingers brush the world explodes into technicolour, and yet she notices only one colour in one particular set of eyes that have snapped up to meet her own.

  
Brown.


End file.
